


I get by with a little help from my friends

by suzukiblu



Series: mad elephants [10]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Alpha Angela "Mercy" Ziegler, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alternate Universe, Fantasy Gender Roles, Friendship, Gen, Male-Female Friendship, Omega Jesse McCree, Self-Esteem Issues, Young Angela "Mercy" Ziegler, Young Jesse McCree
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-16
Updated: 2020-03-16
Packaged: 2021-02-28 19:53:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,024
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23172745
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/suzukiblu/pseuds/suzukiblu
Summary: “Are you in trouble?” Ziegler asks as she sits down across from him in the cafeteria, where he’s spent the past five minutes aggressively staring at an orange, trying to figure out, for the thousandth time, what he actually wants todohere.“I mean, what kinda trouble we talking here?” Jesse says, because there’s definitely a few options.
Relationships: Jesse McCree & Angela "Mercy" Ziegler
Series: mad elephants [10]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1114917
Comments: 14
Kudos: 191





	I get by with a little help from my friends

**Author's Note:**

> Further medically necessary developments.

So Morrison and Reyes don’t care that he ain’t like he was when he was a pup, which to Jesse really just sounds like they don’t care what he’s like at all. That’s a good thing, technically, but also . . . 

Well, they don’t care what he’s like at all. As long as he ain’t a straight-up _monster_ , anyway. 

He don’t know what to think of that. It’s good, probably? Probably. It ain’t _bad_ , so . . . 

It bothers him a bit, but in a way that’s hard to pin down. They just want their pup back and they’ll take him any way they can get him, which includes the fucked up and stupid way that Jesse is. He likes himself well enough, personally, but he also knows where he’s lacking, and he is definitely lacking. 

He could be just about anybody and Morrison and Reyes would treat him the same, though. 

He can’t figure out why that bothers him. 

“Are you in trouble?” Ziegler asks as she sits down across from him in the cafeteria, where he’s spent the past five minutes aggressively staring at an orange, trying to figure out, for the thousandth time, what he actually wants to _do_ here. 

“I mean, what kinda trouble we talking here?” Jesse says, because there’s definitely a few options. 

“The kind where you defended me and got punched for it,” she says. 

“Ah,” he says, finally picking up the orange and starting to peel it. There’s something a little relaxing about having her scent in his space, for some reason, though he can’t quite pin it down. Maybe he was still a little worried she was going to get kicked out after all. “Naw, just had to have an awkward conversation with Morrison. Which, all my conversations with Morrison are awkward, so, y’know.” 

“I’m sorry,” she says. “I didn’t mean to make things difficult for you.” 

“Worry ‘bout yourself, Ziegler,” Jesse says, still peeling. Concentrating very carefully on the peeling, in fact. “I ain’t going anywhere, but they could kick you out just fine, and then who’m I gonna eat lunch with?” 

“Maybe Teddy?” Ziegler says with a faint smile, and Jesse makes a face at her. 

“You actually get kicked out, you’d better take that knothead fuck down with you,” he says, setting aside the last of the peel and separating the orange segments out piece by piece. It’s not soothing, exactly, but it’s a thing to do with himself. Ziegler laughs, then covers her mouth with a hand. 

“I’ll try to remember that,” she says. “I really am sorry, though.” 

“Don’t be,” Jesse says. He pops a piece of orange into his mouth. It tastes pretty good. Somehow Overwatch food always seems to taste good, in season or not, though admittedly his standards are probably lower than average. 

Although Reyes’s cooking was still _way_ too good, low standards or not. 

“My next shift isn’t for a few hours still. Do you want to go to the range after this?” Ziegler asks, which might be another way to apologize to him but don’t mean Jesse ain’t gonna jump on the opportunity anyway. 

“Definitely,” he says, and she smiles. 

“My instructor says my aim’s improved,” she says. 

“‘Course it has, you’ve been practicing,” Jesse says reasonably. “Can’t just shoot once a week and expect to get any good at it.” 

“A fair point,” she says, picking up her bread roll and tearing off a neat little bite. “I suppose that makes you a good influence.” He laughs, obviously; she just smiles at him again. 

“Yeah, see how the teach takes _that_ one,” he says. 

“Well, I did tell her,” Ziegler says. “She took it rather well, I thought. Told me to keep it up.” 

“Now that I genuinely do not believe,” he says, tearing his own roll in half to slather on some butter. 

“She did, really,” Ziegler says. “She said the commanders would be pleased to hear you were settling in.” 

“Oh God,” Jesse says, making a face. Ziegler gives him an apologetic smile. 

“It can’t hurt, surely,” she says. “You do want them to like you, don’t you? Not to pry.” 

“No,” he says. What he wants is _so_ much more complicated than that, and he don’t know how to explain it to her right. “They like their pup. They don’t know nothing about me to like, except for whatever got wrote down in my file over the years.” 

“Was there a lot in there?” Ziegler asks. 

“I got no clue,” he says. His rap sheet and his past fosters and case workers and his medical shit, obviously, but who knows what else. “Only read a couple pages of it, myself.” 

“There could be, probably,” she says. 

“That still ain’t _me_ ,” he says, pointing his butter knife at her. “They coulda wrote down every single thing a case worker knew about me since I was three, and that still wouldn’t actually be me.” 

“I suppose not,” she says. “But helping me with my aim is you, isn’t it?” 

“I dunno,” Jesse says. “Ain’t like it’s all that much.” 

“It’s a lot to me,” she says. “My scores have improved drastically.” 

“Well—good,” Jesse says uncomfortably. He jitters the leg with the ankle monitor distractedly, spurs jangling, then forces himself to still it. It really isn’t that much. He don’t see why anybody’d care. 

They eat the rest of their lunches and ditch the trays, and then it’s off to the range. Jesse really needs to figure out if he can get into this place without Ziegler, but he has yet to try. There’s just too much other shit to worry about, and he don’t wanna deal with getting weird or suspicious looks from everyone else on the range anyway. He’s already gotta do that _with_ Ziegler, and is pretty sure it’d be worse without her. 

She lends him her gun, and he shoots a near-perfect circle into the paper target. It ain’t as interesting as dealing with the training bots was, but it’s a hell of a lot less harrowing. Ziegler makes some impressed noises, and he tips his hat to her with an easy gesture. Her target ain’t nearly so pretty when it’s her turn, but she does a respectable job of it all the same. Shooting ain’t her specialty, anyhow; she don’t need to be as good as he does. As long as she ain’t missing by a mile, that’s good enough, he figures. 

“You really are very good at this,” she says, comparing their targets. 

“It’s what I do,” he says with a shrug. 

“Will you show me that trick again?” she asks as she hangs a new target, and Jesse grins. 

“If you insist,” he says lightly, tipping his hat back on his head, and the world bleeds gray at the edges. Ziegler finishes setting up the target and Jesse stares intently at it in black and gray, then fires another near-perfect circle with one pull of the trigger. Ziegler makes an impressed noise again, and brings the target back. Jesse reloads the gun for another round as color bleeds back into the world, smugly pleased with himself. 

“. . . that was seven shots,” Ziegler says, frowning at the target as she traces a finger across it. 

“Yeah?” He looks at her, not understanding the frown. 

“We only had six left,” she says. 

“Did we?” He looks at the pistol and shrugs. He needed seven shots for the full circle, so . . . “It’s just a trick.” 

“How does it work?” she asks him, and for the damned _life_ of him he can’t figure out how to explain it to her. He never has been too good at explaining Deadeye, though. 

“I dunno,” he says. “I just do it. Ain’t nothing fancy or anything.” 

“Hm.” Ziegler looks at the target again, still frowning. 

“Ready to go another round, Ziegler?” he asks her, holding up the gun. She frowns at the target for a moment longer, then sets it aside and accepts the gun. 

“You really are very good at this,” she says. 

“Thank you kindly,” he says with a little bow, then hangs her target for her. She takes her turn shooting. Again, it ain’t perfect, but it’s good enough for government work. She compares their targets again, and hums quietly to herself. 

“How _do_ you do the trick?” she asks, her finger on the seventh hole in his target. Jesse pauses, looking for the right way to put it. 

“I just do it,” he says. “You know when everything goes all gray?” 

“When everything what?” She blinks at him in confusion. 

“You know, when something’s dangerous or you got a weapon or whatever,” he says, gesturing meaningfully. “Things go all gray.” 

“Do you mean you’re colorblind?” she asks, still looking confused. 

“No,” he says, feeling a mite confused himself at her confusion. “I just mean how things go gray sometimes.” 

“That never happens to me,” Ziegler says, and he . . . pauses, sort of, and tilts his head. 

“Oh,” he says. “Well, then this explanation _really_ ain’t gonna make any sense, I guess.” 

Ziegler laughs a little sheepishly and Jesse shrugs, equally sheepish. Maybe she just ain’t ever been in the right mindset for it, he thinks. He only ever learned how to do Deadeye because he kept getting in real, _real_ dangerous situations, after all. Probably Ziegler ain’t seen as many of those. At least, she’s almost definitely never gotten shot at. 

That’s real weird, actually. He ain’t spent this much time with somebody who’s never even gotten shot at before in _years_. At least Morrison and Reyes are used to that kinda thing. 

He guesses she will be eventually. She’s gonna be a combat medic and all; that kinda implies seeing some combat, one way or the other. 

“Dangerous like what?” Ziegler asks. Jesse debates how much to say, then like pretty much every other time since getting dragged here kicking and screaming decides it ain’t worth lying about. 

“Like getting the shit beat out of you or getting shot at,” he says frankly. “Or talking to Reyes for longer than thirty seconds.” 

She laughs again, but he was halfway serious, honestly. Talking to Reyes feels like walking through a minefield, and walking through a minefield blindfolded on top of that, so you ain’t got even the faintest clue what might set something off. 

He really ain’t looking forward to doing more of it, even if . . . 

He just ain’t. 

“You’re funny, McCree,” Ziegler says, and he shrugs loosely, not really sure what to say to that. 

“Wasn’t really joking,” he says, for lack of a better idea. “You wanna go again?” 

Her face softens a little in a way that he really would not have expected from an A, which weirds him out a bit, but she nods. 

“Yes,” she says. “Let’s go again.” 

“Good,” he says, because he’s only got a couple hours before he has to go meet Morrison for _training_ , whatever that’s gonna entail, and he needs to spend ‘em doing _something_ besides worrying about it. It wasn’t too hard to agree to in the moment—Morrison just has that kinda effect on people, it seems—but he’s been half-regretting the decision ever since. Maybe it’s a bad idea. Maybe he’ll suck at it. Well, no, definitely he’ll suck at it. 

He kinda wishes Morrison had decided to delegate. At least a stranger would be, well, a _stranger_. Not somebody he’s supposed to know. 

Well, alright, he _kinda_ knows Morrison by now, and it ain’t like they’re gonna be talking about deep personal issues, they’re gonna be _training_. Whatever, again, that entails. But it ain’t something to get so fussed over, he’s nearly sure, so it ain’t the time to _be_ fussed. 

Even if Morrison is a war hero and a super soldier and his _father_. 

It’s fine. It’ll be fine. Morrison even _said_ they don’t think he’s a fuckup, which is a clear oversight on their parts but one Jesse’s willing to ride until the wheels fall off. 

He breathes deep, and tells himself it ain’t such a big deal. 

It’s a lie, but hey: Jesse’s always been a good liar.

**Author's Note:**

> [Tumblr!](http://suzukiblu.tumblr.com/)


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